Bones
by girleater
Summary: AU: Emma Swan has a little secret. It lies beneath her bed, it clings to her sheets, it stains the knives she keeps under lock and key. Emma Swan is a serial killer, and Storybrooke, Maine is her newest target. But, when she meets Mayor Regina Mills and her son, Henry, she finds her plans compromised…/swan queen./
1. Prologue

_Prologue_

For years, she'd researched different ways to wash blood out of _white _sheets. She'd done it under the guise of "research writing," swearing up and down that she was in the process of writing the next Great American crime drama. She'd found dozens of methods, dozens of laundry detergent advertisements, but nothing worked better than good 'ol fashioned peroxide. She watched it set into the fabric, dripping over the garish red stains. One day, she'd learn not to buy fucking _white _sheets.

"Please...let me _go..._"

Emma Swan looked up from her dirty sheets, raising an eyebrow as the weak little voice hit her ears. It was almost disgusting, really, watching her prey struggle on the floor. Blood flowed freely from gashes on the man's chest, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head, hands weakly trying to cover the weeping wounds.

Emma Swan scoffed at his plea, picking her knife up from the bedside table. Blood clung to the blade, drying on the smooth surface. She appraised it favorably, a smirk tugging the corner of her lips.

"Let you _go?_"

She said, sauntering towards him, boots clicking nosily against the hardwood floors. Hardwood floors were a godsend, and she praised herself every day for choosing an apartment that had them.

"If I were to let you _go, _what would you do?"

She circled him like a vulture circles its prey, her metaphorical claws bared, lips curling over her teeth in a snarl as she watched him cower more and more the closer she came.

"You can't even _stand. _You're a fucking mess. If I let you go, you'll just stumble around like the piece of shit you are, and then you'll die."

She shrugged her shoulders, holding the knife by the tip with two fingers. She let it dangle precariously, watching the man whose name she hadn't bothered to learn pant and wheeze in front of her. Normally, she at least looked at her victim's wallet, so she had something to call them while she ripped them to pieces. But not tonight, not with this man. She'd seen him in a bar, had let him order her a drink, and within the hour they were at her apartment, stumbling in the door. They were all tongue, teeth, lips and shed clothing.

He hadn't asked for her name, she hadn't asked for his.

Emma knelt beside him, already dressed, and she wanted to _laugh _at his nudity. She'd kept him bare, she'd kept him _exposed. _She wanted his humiliation delivered to her on a silver fucking platter. And she got it. She had a habit of getting whatever she wanted, with whatever means necessary.

"Please don't do this,"

His voice was barely more than a whisper, and he extended a bloodied hand to Emma, fingers shaking erratically.

"I-I don't know—what I did, but...I won't tell, just...take me to a hospital? We'll say it was an accident-"

She pressed the flat of the blade to his lips, shaking her head slowly.

"_You _are the accident."

The blade made the most beautiful noise as she flipped it around in her hand, gripping the hilt tightly. She sliced his throat, skin tearing like paper. Emma watched him gasp, hands instinctively moving to his throat, a last-ditch effort to keep himself alive. It was always fascinating, she thought, to watch her victims die. They always did everything they could to preserve themselves in those final, tense moments. Emma watched with bated breath as the light left his eyes, and she _swore _she could hear his heart stop beating as blood flowed freely from the jugular vein she'd sliced. She wrapped her hand around his neck, skin red-hot as she _squeezed, _moving on top of him, both hands gripping his neck with as much force as she could muster. The knife lay forgotten beside her, and the anger that bubbled up inside her was enough to make her _ache. _

_He's dead, _she reminded herself, trying to convince her grip to slacken. _It's over, _she told herself, breath coming out in short little puffs, her fingers aching as they pressed against his skin harder and harder with each agonizing second.

"I am safe," she whispered, taking a deep breath that burned her lungs. They screamed with the effort to give her oxygen, but she managed to get enough, plenty, so her hands could fall from around his neck. Emma looked down at herself, sighing remorsefully when she realized she'd have to get blood out of her white tank top, too.


	2. Chapter One

_Chapter One _

Six months.

That was how long Emma Swan had lived in Portland. She lived quietly, in a one-bedroom apartment on the so-so side of town (a few drug deals here and there, maybe a break-in every now and then), and she worked a minimum-wage job at the local burger joint. She came home every night smelling like fries, stomach turning at the very thought of cheeseburgers. But hell, it was better than living on the street, because Lord knows she'd had enough of that. But she was getting stranger and stranger looks from the other patrons at the laundromat. Their eyes stayed glued to her faintly red _white_ sheets, to the dyed red tank tops and t-shirts. She merely smiled at them, batting her eyelashes and proclaiming non-nonchalantly,

"Wine."

Emma didn't know how much longer she could blame the stains on alcohol.

It had happened before, when she lived in Boston. She remembered the looks the patrons at the laundromat there gave her, and she was bitterly reminded of how Ed Gein was caught. A gas station customer thought he looked _"shady," _and the next thing he knew his nipple belts and skin-upholstered couches were in police custody. Emma did _not _want to share the same fate. But uprooting every time someone became suspicious was burning a big ass hole in her wallet. But it was starting to look like Portland could no longer be where she called home. She needed some place _small, _quiet, someplace where she could get herself together. Emma was getting reckless, and it was going to cost her. She couldn't afford to be caught, not again, not _ever. _

Emma's bank account had just enough to fund a small..._relocation. _She'd quit her 9-5 nightmare of a job, and find a new...home. Home was such a strange word, when she mulled it about in her brain. It sounded _wrong, _almost tainted when she imagined a house with flowers in a window sill and cars parked neatly in a driveway. Emma had never had a _home._ She had a roof over her head, and that was all she'd ever have. The concept of home and family made her sick.

–

"Storybrooke, Maine."

Emma intoned, bags thrown in the trunk of a taxicab, her ass settled in the backseat. Hours of google searches in private Firefox browsers led her to a little hole-in-the-wall town Population: _sparse, _the perfect hideout for a killer on the run. Emma smirked at the idea, thinking of the knives she kept tucked away at the bottom of her duffelbag. She'd burned the white sheets and tank top that suffered the stains of her last kill, leaving their ashes behind. The burger joint had been _so _sad at the loss of one of their _best _burger flippers, but it was their problem, not hers. She was replaceable in the long run, and they'd find somebody better to make their grease-ridden messes.

Emma looked out the window as the taxi began to move, resting her cheek on the window. The roads went by in a blur of black concrete and road signs, and the city lights dimmed more and more as she got closer to her destination. Leaving Portland behind made her feel _nothing. _Emma didn't get attached to places. Attachments were messy, and could only ever end badly. She closed her eyes, mind reeling when she flashed to the last time she'd made the mistake of getting too close to something. It was what had started the little mess she found herself in. Emma sighed, running shaking fingers through tangled blonde hair. She winced when her fingers jerked at the tangles, but she drug them through, smoothing her bangs and taking a deep breath as the cab came to a halt. The tires screeched on uneven asphalt, and Emma opened the car door, stepping out in the late night air. It sent a chill down her spine, running up and down like a scuttling spider's legs. She dug around in her back pocket, knowing to always use dollar bills instead of credit cards, as she dumped a hundred into the cab's passenger seat.

Her bags were minimal, clothes and shoes, knives and notebooks stuffed into three little bags that she'd had ever since her days in the fucking system. A deep breath to calm herself, and Emma slung her bags over her shoulder, walking into the town. The sun had set, moon pushing past it. She took slow, deliberate steps, boots clicking and clacking against the ground beneath her. She didn't want to make a sound. She wanted to walk in unannounced, so she could be alone with the violent urges that pricked and prodded at her skin, begging to be let through. Everything in Storybrooke felt barren, empty streets and barely any lights to guide her way.

She tightened her grip on the strap of one of her bags, knowing there had to be a hotel around somewhere. The website for the damn town promised a bed & breakfast, and Emma was getting tired of walking real fast. She rounded a corner, eyes falling upon a dull gray house, blue shutters and curtained windows. A little sign on the house's lawn proclaimed, _Granny's Bed & Breakfast, _and Emma let out a sigh of relief. Her bags were beginning to weigh far too heavy on her shoulder. She struggled with the doorknob, the light seeping from inside signaling that they were open. She smiled in relief, managing to open the door. She wanted nothing more than to strip off her leather jacket and boots. The jacket clung to her sweat-slicked skin, and her boots were not meant for pounding the pavement.

Behind the front desk, an elderly woman looked up with a shocked expression on her face. Emma returned her gaze with a simper, leaning against the front door, bags sliding down her shoulder.

"Please tell me you've got a free room," she asked, tone almost begging as she practically slid down the front door. The woman behind the desk (who Emma presumed was _"Granny"_) raised an eyebrow, placing the glasses that dangled from a chain around her neck on her face.

"We _might _have one," she said, plucking a pen from the desk, hovering the tip above a pad of paper.

Emma rolled her eyes, forcing herself to cross the length of the room to stand in front of Granny.

"The name's Emma Swan, check me in for at least a week."

Granny put pen to paper, jotting down her information, glancing up at her warily.

"We haven't had a visitor in years. What are you here for?"

Emma was aghast; she _just _blew into town, and she was already getting the third fucking degree?

"Here's the thing," she began, knowing the lies would flow easily off her tongue. They always did, and Emma prided herself on her ability to dupe anyone and everyone. "I just needed a change of scenery. I came down from the city, busy place. Crowded, you know?"

Granny just eyed her suspiciously, gaze remaining locked on her as she rummaged through a desk drawer for a room key. She handed it to Emma reluctantly; apparently a lack of visitors made people paranoid. Emma didn't know if that would bode well, but regardless she took the key. The end of the key had a stylized metal swan attached to it, and Emma chuckled at it, running her fingers over its metal feathers. She hoisted her bags up onto her shoulder again, Granny's gaze burning a hole in her bag as she ascended the stairs to her room.


End file.
